Has been a great weekend here in Christchurch so I thought I’d get out and use my new wireless setup on some friends. Went to Hagley park and pulled out my new $10 umbrella I got on a recent trip to Hong Kong.
All the shots were done with just one flash through the umbrella and edited in Adobe Lightroom.
A rare self portrait with my friend Clementine.
Actor friend Robert Faith. Check out his work here.
A couple of weeks ago at a party I drunkenly tripped over my flashcable and smashed my Nikon flash. That damn cable was so annoying for two reasons – I was only able to place the flash 15ft away from the camera and I wasn’t able to move the camera around without potentially pulling over the stand.
So I decided to splash out and get a wireless setup. The guys at Photo & Video International (best camera shop in the world) hooked me up with a Phottix Wireless trigger set (technical review here). Took it yesterday up to Victoria park to shoot some mountain bikers – was so much easier to put the flashes wherever I wanted, move around with the camera and have no fear that I’ll pull the stand over and smash some more gear. For $200 NZD Iwas able to get a transmitter and 2 receivers – which work for up to 30m from the camera. Check out the full mountain biking set here.
Have nothing to compare them to but so far they are reliable and making the shoot 100 times easier. Am going out to play with them some more today :)
The setup on top of my Lumix GF1 and the two receivers.
Shot & Directed by MIKE GONZALES & LOGAN McMILLAN | Witten by MIKE GONZALES | Shot on a Canon 550D & Canon 5D mk2
Recently I got asked to go to Hong Kong and shoot a promo for toy company Wow Wee.
My good friend Mike Gonzales works there and was a co-director on this project. Travelled across into mainland China to shoot in a factory. Was super hot. Interestingly we weren’t allowed to use any actors – so had to pick out our cast from the real factory workers on the morning of the shoot.
Another challenge was that none of the workers could speak or understand any english. So we had 2 translators – one from english to cantonese and one from cantonese to mandarin. It took forever to tell the ‘actors’ what we wanted them to do.
Ended up being a lot of fun though – and the workers had a great time!
Mike and myself setup a shot on the slider.
They provided 4 of us with something like 12 McDonalds combos for lunch!
Surrounded by merchandise.
Mike with his Canon 550D & 70-200mm f2.8 L series lens.
Trying to get some cool jumping shots. The actors loved this.
One of the funniest things of the shoot was Mike teaching the workers how to rock out.
China's very own Bruce Springsteen & Pe-Wee Herman
Was lucky enough to get to shoot a music video for the amazing Julia Deans! She had a quick visit to CHCH coming up so we had to turn around the video fast for her. Ended up going back to the Lightworkx studio (which is an amazing space) and using their coloured backdrops. All shot on the Canon EOS 550D.
Director / Edit LOGAN McMILLAN | Producer KATIE O’BRIEN | Grip / Gaffer ANDREW DEAN | Makeup BRAE TOIA | Studio LIGHTWORKX
So local musician Hera got in contact with me a week or so ago asking for some promo photos. She was very open to shoot anything that I wanted – which was great.
Today we headed out to get some shots at Bottle Lake forest. It was sunny so I was hoping to see light rays breaking through the canopy. Got there and one of my two flashes wasn’t working. So had to make do with only 1. Then it started pissing down!
Luckily Hera was keen to keep shooting and we soldiered on. Ended up getting some cool water shots! As you can see from the pics – she’s a pretty good sport.
Was recently commissioned by Tandem Studios to shoot a promo video for Polished Diamonds. So had my first crack at shooting diamonds and rings. Shot the whole video on a 100mm macro lens and hired the lush Lightworkx studio. Check out the final edit below:
Directed, DOP & Edited by LOGAN McMILLAN | Written by DEB STANAWAY | Model TYLER co/ LMC MODELS | Gaffer & Grip ANDREW DEAN | Motion Graphics DAN WATSON | Studio LIGHTWORKX